"Mr. Yamauchi, why do you have to force me to this extent?" Jia Yapeng's face turned sour.
"I'm not forcing you!" Yamauchi shook his head. "I'm just following our usual rules. All game cartridges that sell less than 5,000 copies will be forcefully removed from the shelves after a month. There has never been an exception. I'm not targeting anyone. Trash should leave the stage so that more outstanding games can be noticed."
"I've already reminded you that you have to be careful with the first printing. It's already very risky to print 50,000 copies of a new game. You insisted on printing 1 million copies. This has nothing to do with us. It's your arrogance that got you in trouble! "Yamauchi said calmly.
Yamauchi had already made up his mind to remove Pokemon from the shelves. This was not a result that could be changed by negotiation.
"Alright, we were indeed a little arrogant!" Boss Jia sighed and said, "But Mr. Yamanouchi, once Nintendo decides to take down the game, can we sell it ourselves?"
"That's impossible!" Yamauchi immediately rejected. "Even if it's a product that has been removed from the shelves, without Nintendo's permission, it can't be sold!"
"Is that so?" Jia Yapeng exclaimed. "But I don't remember it being written in the contract!"
"That's impossible. It's written in the contract!" Yamauchi retorted. The contract between Nintendo and a third party game company was written by Yamauchi himself. He remembered every single rule clearly.
All the games that were released on Nintendo's platform were in the hands of Nintendo. Yamauchi did not remember that there was a clause in the contract that allowed third parties to sell Nintendo's games.
Yamauchi had always believed that in order to maintain the quality of Nintendo's games, as well as Nintendo's own profits, they had to control all game cartridges' sales channels.
All game cartridges must be sold by Nintendo. Any third party, even if they were game developers, could only get a share of the profits. They could not sell the cartridges themselves.
Therefore, Yamauchi's third party contract restricted all sales channels. They would not give third parties any chance to sell the cartridges themselves.
That was why Yamauchi rejected it so decisively. How could there be such a loophole in the contract that he had designed?
"No, I remember that there is!" Boss Jia scratched his head and shouted, "I remember now. It's stated in Article 23 of the contract. Due to the wrong estimation of the third party game company, there were too many game cartridges burned, and the sales volume exceeded the total burned volume by 50%. "
"Third-party game companies must be responsible for their own mistakes and purchase the excess sales cartridges at the full price of the burning price!"
"Chairman Yamanouchi, is there such a rule?" Jia Yapeng asked.
"So what?" Yamauchi frowned.
Of course, Yamauchi was well aware of this rule in the contract. This rule was personally drafted by Yamauchi himself. The purpose was to prevent too many cards from being burned and unable to be sold, leading to a loss.
That's why Yamauchi Hiroshi created this rule so that any losses incurred would be transferred to a third-party game company. This was also the reason why Miyamoto Shigeru asked Tajiri to pay the 1 billion yen burning fee.
In any case, you guys miscalculated the number of the first print run, so what does that have to do with Nintendo?
But why did Jia Yapeng mention this rule?
Yamauchi Hiroshi was confused.
"But I remember that Article 21 has an additional clause. That is, when the third party game company buys all the excess game cartridges, in order to make up for the loss, the third party game company is allowed to sell the game cartridges themselves under the condition that they pay Nintendo 50% of the profits in advance and are not allowed to reduce the price!"
"Chairman Yamauchi, there is such a clause in the contract. I remember correctly, right?" Jia Yapeng asked with a smile.
"…" Yamauchi Hiroshi didn't say anything. If Jia Yapeng didn't mention this, he really wouldn't have remembered this clause. But once Jia Yapeng mentioned it, Yamauchi Hiroshi immediately recalled it. After all, he was the one who drafted this clause.
There was indeed such a clause in the contract, but this clause was never triggered, nor was it used by a third party game company.
Why?
The reason was simple. Because the game company wouldn't spend money to implement this supplementary clause.
This supplementary clause would only be triggered when the game's inventory exceeded 50% of the total production volume, and when Nintendo took the initiative to remove the game from the market.
This meant that the game was definitely a rubbish game. At the very least, it would be a game that couldn't be sold in the market.
This way, the game company wouldn't be happy. Not only would they have to spend money to buy back the game cartridges, but they also wouldn't be allowed to sell them. Wasn't this throwing money into a pond? Many small game companies directly chose to self-destruct after discovering this. Even if they went bankrupt, they wouldn't buy back the game cartridges.
This gave Nintendo a headache. So, Yamauchi Hiroshi made a change in the rules. He allowed the game company to sell the cartridges themselves, but before that, they had to pay Nintendo's share of the profits.
Nintendo's logic was simple. Because if they left Nintendo's control, they wouldn't know how many game cartridges the game company had sold.
So, Nintendo asked the game company to pay Nintendo's share of the profits first. This way, no matter how much the game company sold, Nintendo would still be able to earn the original share.
Of course, considering that they had to pay Nintendo's share of the profits first, plus the fact that the game itself wasn't easy to sell, Nintendo reduced their share of the sales by 50%.
For example, this time, the Pokemon that was sold for 3,999 yen. After paying 1,000 yen to record the game, the remaining 2,999 yen would be the retailer's profit. The remaining 2,800 yen would be split equally between Nintendo and the Rocket Team. Each of them would get 1,400 yen of the profits.
But under the supplementary clause, Nintendo's share of the profits was reduced by half, from 1,400 yen to 700 yen. But the premise was that the money had to be paid by the Rocket Team in advance.
Look, Nintendo's calculations were so good. If they wanted to sell the cartridges that they couldn't sell, they would have to pay a large share of the profits first.
Which game company would be able to bear this? They already had to pay 1,000 yen per cartridge, and now they had to pay an additional 700 yen. Who the f * ck would be able to bear this?
So, even when Nintendo came up with this clause, there were almost no companies that were willing to pay to buy the rights. Over time, even Yamauchi Hiroshi himself almost forgot about this clause.
Until now, when Jia Yapeng took the initiative to bring it up.
"Chairman Yamauchi, if we are willing to pay a total of 700 million, then we can sell the Pokemon ourselves, right?"
"That's right!" Yamauchi Hiroshi nodded subconsciously.
"Then it's settled!" Jia Yapeng took out another 700 million yen check from his pocket and handed it to Yamauchi Hiroshi. Then he smiled and said, "Chairman Yamauchi, this time you really made money while lying down!"
That's right!
Yamauchi Hiroshi didn't have to do anything. He just used the advantage of the platform and the Tyrant's clause to pay a little bit of the recording costs, and received a huge amount of 1.7 billion yen. This was almost equivalent to Nintendo's total sales in the Fusang region for the past month. This was really an explosive deal!
Yamauchi Hiroshi was probably dreaming, and he was about to wake up laughing.
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